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Board of Trustees - Former Trustees

Henry Ingersoll Bowditch

Trustee of the Boston Public Library, 1865-1867. Born 1808 in Salem,
MA; died 1892. Physician, author and abolitionist. A son of mathematician
Nathaniel Bowditch, Henry I. Bowditch graduated from Harvard College
in 1828 and completed his medical training there in 1832, spending
an additional 2 years studying with physicians in Paris, France.
While in Europe he was so impressed with the anti-slavery writings
of William Wilberforce that he became a militant abolitionist on
his return to Boston. His medical contributions to public health
service include establishing a board of health for Massachusetts
and publishing Public Hygiene in America, as well as detailed studies
on tuberculosis, one of the chest diseases in which he specialized.
Prior to the 1858 opening of the Library’s Boylston Street
building, Henry I. Bowditch and his brothers donated their late
father’s collection of some 2,500 mathematic, navigation and
astronomy books, with the stipulation that they be kept together
and not circulate so as to provide reference to those who would
have need of their contents.